I’ve been terribly derilect in my duties in keeping my blogroll up to date.

Links make the blog — both incoming and outgoing. I do my best to pepper my posts with interesting links that are, on the surface, only tangentially related to the words from which they are linked. I hope some of you are as amused by where they take you as I am in choosing them in the first place.

Links to Escamoteurettes from other web sites are appreciated. Truly, they are. And links from the Escamoteurettes blogroll, while admittedly not as exciting as winning the lottery, are heartfelt.

So, here are a few additions:

Jim Sisti Magic — my friend.
Magic, Mentalism, Mystery — The Secret Life Of A Magic Cat
The Magician — a weblog for the magical arts
The Indian Magicians’ Blog — Nakul Shenoy’s blog
The Magic Advocate

Like voting in Chicago, visit these links early and often.

How do you find a web site?

As a general rule, most people find a web site through another web site. It could be a site you already have visited. It could be a search engine’s results. One site links to another, you click the link, and like magic here you are. That’s how the web was designed, of course. That’s why it’s called “the web.”

Run a web server long enough and you will find yourself digging through your server logs to determine from where a visitor arrived. Logs can tell you what link someone clicked to get to your web site. It’s sort of like spelunking only without stepping into bat guano.

Of all the search engines that send people this way, Google amuses to me to no end with its endless bizarre and sometimes delusive ability to steer people to Casa Escamoteurettes. Welcome one and all.

Purely in the interest of digital prurience — added to the fact that you know I love lists and haven’t done one in so long — here are some search phrases that have led people to your humble servant’s blog. And, while it might normally concern me mightily that some of these searches returned Escamoteurettes toward the top of some of the search results, one should never look a gift horse in the mouth. To wit:

where did the phrase “they drank the Kool aid” come from
stewart james classical mechanics falling keys
John Grinder jail
how to do the asher twist sleight magic
Free Will Deddy Corbuzier explained
five-star prediction thompson
gibson lucille+users
leblanc’s natural products
t shirt penguin “find a new angle”
carl sagan l ron hubbard
“richard tell” dentist
pod xt live programming hints
magic rants
voyager spacecraft medallion
“13 steps to mentalism” + “pdf”
ulf moerling trick
Biography Beliefs of David Fitzkee
magic impossible * trick add the numbers mentalism mind reading NLP
“comedy magic show” + “magic cafe”
“Ed Mcmahan” model
card tricks shuffling instructions exposed
l&l publishing barefoot
the great slidini magic tricks
milton erickson purple shirt meaning
Neo-Magic Artistry review
finger technique ultra-mental
magic tits (JL: a search phrase I thought belonged to Magic Mafia)
magic “book test” dale carnegie
millard longman
sachs/old bicycle
“cups and balls” routine “this example”
“Sandra Sisti”
nailwriter mccambridge
nick ruggiero
corinda + “card tricks”
suspend others terror cultivate air unpredictability
stanyons magic review
“red hot cold reading
the Gunnsight
“magic makers” “ghost kings”
” 202 methods of forcing” annemann download

Of course, listing these search phrases runs the risk of throwing Google into a Mobius loop the next time someone searches one of these phrases, but you know, that’s a risk I’m willing to take.

Steve Pellegrino, on his blog Magic Rants, posted a note about Richard Stokes’s website about Jasper Maskelyne.

As you probably already know from reading this blog, I am a fan of the history of magic. And Steve’s post called to mind a note I sent back in November of last year in to a Yahoo! Groups discussion group dedicated to magicians doing mentalism. If you have an interest in Maskelyne and checked out the site, you may be interested in this little bit of back story, which I wrote in response to mention of the question, “Haven’t there been counter claims that Maskelyne’s part in the war effort has been more than somewhat exaggerated over the years?”

John LeBlanc writes:
That’s been suggested. When one learns of the material David Fisher used in writing the book, “The War Magician” the picture gets much clearer. It certainly makes for good fiction and, naturally, a great screenplay. The truth, apparently, is far more tame.

Back in 2001, on hearing the news that Tom Cruise was tapped to play the part of Jasper Maskelyne in an upcoming movie based on the book, Angela (Jasper’s grand-daughter) was none too amused. She called Richard Stokes and discussed the matter.

A few years earlier, Stokes wrote a series of articles, as Richard put it, “disembowelling David Fisher’s hyped-up account of Jasper’s so-called war career.”

In the introdution to the series, Stokes wrote:

“Many of the claims made by David Fisher…need to be drastically revised. The magical duel with the Imam; the dramatic search for an enemy radio transmitter hidden in King Farouk’s palace; the construction of a decoy site to protect Alexandria from aerial attack; the ‘vanishing’ of the Suez canal; the perilous ‘lost in the desert’ episode ­ these crucial ingredients of the Maskelyne myth will be subjected to critical bombardment.

“Even the effectiveness of the famous deception plan for El Alamein will be questioned.

“An interesting pattern will gradually emerge: Fisher while inflating Maskelyne’s contribution, minimises or overlooks the contribution of others.”

In 2001, when the movie story broke, Richard sent to me copies of his revised articles, all incredibly well cross-referenced in footnotes. It seemed to me then — as it does now — that a story about the story would be nearly as interesting reading.

Richard created a web site that, among other things, includes these revised articles (probably further revised from four years ago.) I think you may it interesting reading: http://www.maskelynemagic.com/

There’s no question that Jasper Maskelyne is an interesting and important part of the history of magic. In my opinion, Stokes’s work only makes it more so.

Those intimately familiar with Phil Goldstein’s Color Series know a couple of things. They know these booklets originally sold for a very small amount of money. They know the material, while not overflowing the covers, was thought provoking and practical for a working mentalist. They also know the prices these booklets fetched on the eBay market in later years made a 1982 investment in Microsoft look like a “marginal investment.”

The booklets come to mind because, as I reaquaint myself to things in Casa LeBlanc, I’ve come across the still-sealed package from my friends at H&R Magic Books which contained my new copy of “Prism” — the reprinted version of the Color Series. (A little advanced planning on my part would have allowed me to pick up the copy in person when it arrived in the upstairs hallowed hall of H&R, but the phrase “advanced planning” stands in opposition to “Surprise!” — which is tattooed to the skin beneath my wristwatch.)

While attending MAGIC Live! last year, Jim Sisti, Jim’s wife Sandy, and I happened to be the next folks in line in front of Max Maven and Stephen Minch — all of us waiting to be admitted to the theater for one of the two evening shows. Among the several topics of conversation was the Color Series and the question I’m sure neither of them were ever asked (at least, not in the ten seconds previous to our inquiry): were the Color Series of booklets going to be reprinted?

The answer was neither “yes” or “no.” In fact, there was no absolute, usable answer at all. At least no “no” gave hope there could be a reprinting, even if it took someone paying Tony Soprano himself to drive up to Washington and personally impress upon the fine folks at Hermetic Press how important it is to do this thing.

So it was with a great deal of happiness that the announcement in early January finally made its waves among the teaming masses that a new Max Maven book was to be released real soon now. (And this was not the long awaited book on the terrifying beauty that is the Gilbreath Principle.) It was the long awaited (for some, feared) reprint of the Color Series.

While there are any number of “name” performers who are feathering their 401K plans with issues, reissues, repackages, etc., (my sense of propriety doesn’t allow me to link to P*ngu*n Magic) it’s never a bad day when someone — like Max Maven — turns out something actually valuable and useful and original — especially if it’s a reissue of hard-to-find material.

As you are probably already aware, not every text on magic and mentalism from the 70s is worthy of obtaining and study. My magic library has the “hell shelf” near the floor and it extends from one end of the book case to the other filled with the magic book equivalent of 1970s Leif Garret posters; things published that probably seemed like a really good idea at the time, but viewed in the light of a 21st century sense of reality pale into adbsurdity. (No, I don’t actually have a Leif Garrett poster, so please don’t ask what I’d take for it. As for the albums, I’m keeping them. Don’t ask about them either.)

Back to the eBay revolution.

Over the years occasionally someone on a newsgroup or discussion board would ask about a trick, and someone may reference a booklet from the Color Series. So, the magic guy would call His Favorite Dealer and the conversation might go along these lines: “Got the Color Series? No? Okay. What’s new this week?”

But there came a point in time in the late 90s when, thanks to the lifeforce that is the Internet, interest in the series rallied into frenzy. And, thanks to to the lifeforce- and money-sucking entity known as eBay, those interests were satiated at prices that rose into the several hundreds of dollars. At those prices, it also became common knowledge that some of those sets sold through eBay auctions were manufactured by someone who was not Phil Goldstein or Max Maven. They were Deddied, if you will.

Prior to the re-release of the Series, a common question would pop up whenever the juxtaposed words “color” and “series” came up in idle conversation. And that’s “are they worth those prices?” Now that’s a topic to throw into the same column as politics and religion.

“Worth” is a concept, like most others, that is meaningless without some sort of context to go along with it. What are they worth in comparison to what? For what reason or purpose?

I buy magic and mentalism books for one of four primary reasons, or a combination of them. First, I purchase a book (booklet, manuscript, penciled-on sheets of toilet paper) because I wish to perform that trick and I believe if I perform something, I should own a legitimate copy of the text. Yes, I know, some people think that’s silly. I happen to think “Who makes the better captain: Kirk or Picard?” arguments silly, but different strokes for different folks, I always say. (And it’s Picard, by the way.)

Second, I buy books because they increase my knowledge of the subject matter. When one becomes seriously interested in a topic, doesn’t it make sense that he surround himself with written material that adds to his knowledge base on the subject?

On a related note, if more “magic inventors” purchased and actually read more books on their chosen craft, far fewer “accidental reinventions” would occur. (And if some “name” magicians would be mindful of what they’ve already released several dozen times already, using different titles, some online magic stores would find it necessary to reduce their inventory of that author by several magnitudes.)

Third, I buy a book because I collect books. I sometimes buy several editions of the same book. For instance, I have a hard cover version of Larry Becker’s “STUNNERS!” that I purchased from Tom Ladshaw. It was originally in Robert Weill’s library; now it’s in mine. (May Bob rest in peace.) When Larry released “STUNNERS! Plus!” I purchased a copy of that, too, even though Larry sent to me a PDF file of all the “Plus!” material. I wanted to own a copy of the new book anyway.

Hilliard’s “Greater Magic” is another of my favorites. I own seven hard cover versions of that book. My favorite copy, though, is another Tom Ladshaw buy: a pristine first edition that came from David Price’s personal library. The other copies are first and second editions in various grades of condition.

These are items that, because of their limited production and availability, tend to go up in monetary value.

Finally, I may buy something to support a writer. This is not to say I’m not interested in or don’t value the material or the quality of the material, but sometimes I feel compelled to purchase a copy of something because some authors should be given a reason or two to continue creating new stuff.

So, back to the worth of the Color Series. Were they worth several hundred dollars for the set?

Well, for me, that’s an easy “yes.” I actually perform a couple of tricks from those booklets, so Reason Number 1 above fits here. Yes, they are variations from the written word but not so much so that I can claim any ownership of the tricks. When a performer uses a trick to earn a living, several hundred dollars is not the issue. A working illusionist can easily justify fifteen thousand dollars for a Steinmeyer illusion built by John Gaughan or Bill Smith. The average weekend warrior — while a perfectly respectable aspect in the business end of magic — is not likely to find a rational reason in this or any alternate universe for spending that kind of jack on an illusion.

I’ll also say that I have collected lots of Phil Goldstein items over the years. I think he’s an interesting fellow and I enjoy reading what he wrote. And because I’m not the only Goldstein fan on the planet and there are only so many copies of Goldstein items in existence, the monetary value tends to go up on them over time. This is not a bad reason to purchase something. (It’s not a great reason, but it’s not a bad one either.) I think you’ll find that, even though Prism has been released, there’s still a collector’s market that wishes to obtain a legitimate set of the Color Series because that’s what collectors do: they collect.

So, given that, should you obtain either the original Color Series or a copy of Prism? Well, that depends on your reasons for obtaining the material.

At minimum, you should obtain a copy of the book for the material in it. If you have an interest in magic and mentalism — and I have to think you do, or you wouldn’t be reading this blog and, especially, this post — you should study the tricks and what makes them tick. This is one of the most important reasons for studying tricks by authors like Goldstein; it’s not so much to learn the trick, but to learn why the trick was constructed the way it was and why it plays the way it does to an audience.

By the way, you’ll note there is no mention of “limited edition” in connection with the release of Prism. There’s a scurge crawling across the landscape of magic and mentalism publishing that some publishers have embraced to the eternal irritation of others: the limited edition.

What exactly is the point of limited edition? If you think about it, most every book or trick published in our bizarre little world is, by definition, limited edition. To append the words “limited edition” to most of the releases you find today is just silly and/or egocentric.

Sure, there are exceptions to that rule: anything Todd Karr at The Miracle Factory puts out deserves limited edition status. Several limited edition versions of Kaufman’s books certainly deserve the label because they are special leather bound and cased versions of a released book.

But someone releasing an e-book as a ‘limited edition”? Oh, brother.

Steve Bryant has a great writeup on Prism in his February 2005 edition of Little Egypt Magic. Go there and read what he’s written and maybe that will tip you over the fence if you’re still wondering whether or not to buy the book. (You do read Little Egypt Magic faithfully, right? It’s always — always — interesting, and besides, where else can you go to see these words on a web page about magic: “It was only then that I learned how truly devastating Don Alan’s load was.”)

It should be fairly obvious that the posts on Escamoteurettes lean more toward the essay side of the fence than they do current events. (My previous blogs were of the current events/what am I thinking at the moment type.) That was a decision I made early on and I think I’ve done a pretty good job of sticking to that.

On the other hand, I am also huge fan of the history of magic. My weakness for old books, pamphlets and photos dealing with magic is exceeded by few other things. So, when I received a nice note from Thomas Weynants about a web site he hosts that has a “new page on Prestidigitation, Conjuring & Magic in relation to photography and pre-cinema” naturally I made a beeline to it.

I think it’s worth a look if you have similar interests:

PRESTIDIGITATION CONJURING ARTS NECROMANCY ART HAUNTED GLASS — DECEPTION OF THE EYE & SENSES

I also found the rest of the site absolutely fascinating. Maybe you will, too.

There’s a common path trodden by many in the world of mystery entertainment. I’ve been down that path, watched others walk it, and pointed still others down it from time to time. It’s tried, true, and — for many — virtually unavoidable mostly because they don’t know there’s any other way. (Not that there’s anything terribly wrong with what I’m about to describe. It’s staying on the path that causes the problems.)

You buy a trick or two and hurry along through your first performance for someone who isn’t sleeping, dead, or your cat. And good, bad or indifferent that performance (really the response to that performance) whets your appetite in much the same way I’m told the first drag on the glass pipe affects people.

So you buy more tricks.

You perform more tricks.

You desire more, so you acquire more.

Eventually, though, a good magic dealer will grab you by the bits and pieces of metal you might have jutting from your nostrils, eyebrows, ears or…well, let’s not go there…and suggests you buy books. As Paul Diamond says, “books are your best investment.” (Actually, Paul growls it, but if you know Paul, you already knew that. In which case, you’re probably hearing in your head Paul shouting, “Hey you! Come here!”)

If you’re lucky, you have a good magic dealer. He’ll suggest Tarbell and Giobbi and Stars of Magic. If he’s a really good magic dealer, he’ll put a gun to your now-dog-eared deck of Bicycle cards and tell you that you’ll either read the Tarbells or he will kill your deck. If he’s a truly disturbed magic dealer, he’ll actually pull the trigger.

But enough about the Jeffs of the world.

If you read enough books on the performance of magic and mentalism, you’ll run across the suggestion that you should be ever mindful of the mental and emotional state of your audience as you perform. You realize, maybe slowly but surely, that there’s more to this stuff than not dropping the cards. Knowing fifty ways from Sunday how to force a card may be clever, but knowing how to successfully covertly do it every single time is more important. You learn that, as a performer, you are (or should be) in control of guiding your audience where you wish them to go.

At this fork in the mystical road to enlightenment, magic texts tend to take one of two paths. And for you, it’s a lot like Neo having to chose the red pill or the blue pill not fully knowing the consequences of your choice ahead of time. (Lots of us call this situation “real life.”) Except in this case if you swallow the wrong pill, you can always hack it up and try the other one and no one named “Smith” is chasing you. Unless the glass pipe from the second paragraph above isn’t just metaphor for you. In which case, who is that guy standing behind you? Ha, ha, just kidding. Not really.

One path suggests that, as Magician, you are in a position of power. Never abuse that power. Love, coddle your audience. Embrace them, protect them.

Take this creepy path and you’ll end up hugging your audience to sleep.

What’s worse is you’ll rob yourself of the fire and power and surprise and magic this stuff is capable of creating for audiences. It’s cutting vital organs from a living, breathing thing your audience desires to witness. The Point, for pity’s sake. (Unless you happen to be a large bosomed chick, in which case it’s your special magic most audiences wish to see. Hey, I’m just the reporter — don’t shoot the messenger.)

This emasculated path is not something you’ll find suggested by Juan Tamariz. Or Darwin Ortiz. Or Jamy Swiss. Or Michael Ammar. (Truth be known, the entire point of this post was simply a logical context in which to juxtapose Swiss and Ammar on a topic in which they are in accord. That’s magic, my friend.)

Months ago when I told my friend Jim Sisti that I’d ordered the book/DVD package from Jamy Swiss, he told me about a certain point Jamy made in his “Live in London” DVD about the effect he wished to have on his audience. I quoted it in an earlier Escamoteurettes post, but here it is again:

I want to destroy my audience! I want to induce inoperable brain tumors! I want them to remember me, not the magic, but me! And not for today, or tomorrow, or next week, but for the rest of their damn lives and tell their grandchildren about me!

Let’s file that under the category of “tough love.” Works for me.

In his excellent, must-have book, “The Magic of Michael Ammar” Michael reprints an essay titled “Have No Mercy.” In one part, he states:

If it is true we only get what we give, then we should HAVE NO MERCY when it comes to dishing out wonder and amazement. Grab the helm and wage all-out war on the spectator’s senses.

Know thy enemy. Systematically analyze their primary lines of defense: sight, sound, touch, taste and smell, and brutally attack the weaknesses of each. (That’s called ‘Know How.’) Thoroughly research their secondary lines of defense, the ‘safety nets’ against deception: their experience, their logic, their assumptions, their common sense, and cunningly twist them against themselves. (That’s called ‘KNOW WHY.’)

That’s not even a hop, skip and a jump away from Brain Tumorville, wouldn’t you say?

There are two essays in that book I value more than the balance of the book collectively and that essay one of them. (The other is on how to make more money.)

So, how far is “too far”?

Ferris suggests you can never go too far. But I’m not so sure about that. Afterall, he wasn’t a magician.

Eugene Poinc, bless his dearly departed soul, suggests in the introduction to his book, “The Practitioner“ which is aimed at the bizarre magick performer (as opposed to the plain bizarre magic performer):

The implements used by the Practitioner (and they are never gaudy magic shop props) are carried in either an aged grey carpetbag, or a very old, weathered black leather medical bag. An attache case is anathema, a commercial close-up case even worse.

The Practitioner never uses a silly little birthday cake candle, only a fairly massive grey or brown beeswax candle in appropriate holder. A plaster or plastic human skull or devil’s head is absurd. A real skull, human or animal, or decaying fragment of a coffin lid is used. The candle is ignited preferably with small wax matches (Lucifers) or a very simple but handsome silver cigarette lighter — never book matches.

If something must be written, it is with a grey or silver fountain pen, never ballpoint; if with a pencil, it should look very old (sans yellow paint) and have no eraser set in a metal ferrule. Paper employed is always very high quality to look and touch, or parchment if to be of antiquity.

Now, just reading that puts me in a good frame of mind. (Not that I’m going to go Googling for Skulls-R-Us inventory. Again, I mean.)

I will end this — as I often do — by asking a question or two: are you going far enough, showing no mercy, and giving your audience the experience they deserve even if they don’t know exactly what that experience should look like? You should know; it’s your job to know. Or are you surgically removing the thing that can set you apart from most everyone else who calls themselves performers, and create for them a memorable experience your audience will be talking about for the rest of their lives?

As I get my bearings on what’s new in the world over the last two months and gear up to resume my usual publishing schedule here at Casa Escamoteurettes, I want to mention Richard Osterlind’s new blog.

If you’ve read this blog for any length of time, you know how much I admire and respect Richard. So, it was with a great deal of happiness and all around joy for the world when my friend Jim Sisti mentioned to me in our phone chat today that Richard has a blog.

Please take a look at it.

Now, I have loads to catch up on.

There are certain non-spiritual, but closely held beliefs that sometimes take on great, life-and-death spiritual importance for some people. These beliefs tend to guide decisions and actions in a completely illogical, if comfortable manner.

When you hear words like “should” or “always” or “never” or “ever” always ask, “Why so?” Not asking perpetuates deeply held beliefs that, at the end of the day, many people can’t say why they are so closely held. And, “Because that’s the way we’ve always done it” is not what one would consider to be a “good answer.”

This doesn’t happen quickly, of course. (Heaven forbid Rome should be built in a day.) But once those beliefs take hold it makes GI Joe’s Kung Fu Grip seem like child’s play. Which it is not, but don’t get me started.

(My non-spiritual brethren should feel free to continue reading. This isn’t a religious screed, so come with me brothers for a walk on the wild side.)

Over the last two months, among the several exciting adventures in which I’ve found myself — none of which, by the way, involve incarceration, near-incarceration, or attempted-anything — involves the production of a musical project. To be more specific, the creation of a double-CD and DVD of a two hour live performance of an full orchestra and choir. (For the audio-geeked-out among you, 72 audio tracks and Auto-Tune was not allowed in the studio.)

As a result of that, I’ve (again) found obvious correlations between the world of music and that of mystery entertainment. (It would be a source of endless amusement if I had endless time on my hands.) In the world of music performing, there are certain cardinal rules that simply aren’t broken. Why? Well…because, that’s why. Now run along and play.

We find the same sort of thing in magic and mentalism, too. I suppose it’s human nature to go along with the hallucinations of others if only because there are often bigger fish to fry.

The electric guitar finds its direct roots in the Gibson guitar company and the 1937 release of the electric Spanish guitar, the ES-150, which sold for $150.00. (Actually, the roots probably go back to a couple of thousand years BC with the lute, but let’s go with Gibson for a moment.) The ES — Electric Spanish — line is still being made today. B.B. King’s Lucille is one of the more recognizable examples.

As the basic concept of an electric guitar caught on, other designs found their way into the market and certain styles have become “standards” in the world of guitar playing. And any time you have standards or classics, you’ll find mythical beliefs that may as well be etched on the cheek of The Monument.

A popular mythical belief: either a Gibson Les Paul or a Fender Stratocaster fed into either a tube Marshall or Fender amplifier is the sound of rock. That’s a safe start, anyway.

(Actually, “popular mythical belief” is a bit weak. Blood is often spilled over this point.)

Further granularizing involves questions like which tubes go into the amplifier; which instrument cord goes between the guitar and amplifier; which special effects pedal goes before — and after — which other special effects pedal; which knob should be turned to which number (or fractional number) to get the perfect sound, and which guitar pick to use. (Unless your name is Mark Knopfler in which case, that last question is moot.)

Rising above pedestrian rules is this activity, which deals you the Go Directly to Jail, Do Not Pass Go, Do Not Collect $200 card: using anything but a tube amplifier. This is tantamount to blowing your nose on the curtains at the funeral parlor when the casket is opened: it’s just not done.

Another rule: hit records must be recorded in the most expensive studio and produced by the producer who has collected the most number of gold records for previous work. Another rabbit’s foot.

In our weird little corner of the world, we have our own cardinal rules. More on that later.

So, by way of showing what happens when you break all the rules, I give you Boston.

That’s Boston the band, not the town.

And even saying “Boston the band” is a bit of a misnomer. Boston was really Tom Scholz and company. And Tom Scholz had a vision he saw in all its Technicolor glory.

After graduating MIT, having attended on a full scholarship, Scholz took employment with Polaroid, they of film camera fame. Tom worked days being a brilliant engineer, and nights engineering demo recordings of his songs in his basement recording studio. After a few years of this, he shopped his four demo songs to all the record companies he could locate. There was interest, but not a final deal.

Cutting to the chase, a couple of extra songs were recorded which led directly to interest in a record deal with Epic Record company. All fine and good until someone noticed that the band needed to perform live performances, and currently “the band” consisted primarily of Scholz and singer Brad Delp. In short order, other members were brought in and Boston recorded an album.

Sort of.

Having already broken one rule (the band business) Tom proceeded to break a few more. Not interested in having a record company-selected producer lord over his creation and creativity, a studio was rented in California with producer John Boylan hovering over sessions with three of the band members that were actually the decoy for the real recording, which was going on in Scholz’s basement recording studio. With Scholz playing most everything himself and recording most everything himself.

I suppose, if you were to gauge the relative level of rule-breaking, that would have been at the top of the list. The very idea that a record recorded mostly by one man in his basement recording studio would end up being released in the big world of record labels is sort of preposterous. It’s just not done. Ever.

Let’s see. Another broken rule: killer acoustic guitar sound can only come from a Martin acoustic guitar which costs in the neigborhood of a set of dental veneers. However, the acoustic guitar heard on over 16 million copies of the Boston debut album is a cheap $100 Yamaha guitar.

The rest, as they say, is history. Boston’s eponymous debut album is the biggest selling debut album, and tenth best selling album in history. Not bad for breaking a few rules.

Lest one might come to the conclusion that breaking the rules has become embraced, given many examples of unbridled success, I give you: Line 6.

While guitar amplifier manufacturers were still falling over themselves to build and market “real guitar amplifiers” for “real guitarists” Marcus Ryle and Michel Doidic co-founded a little company of ten employees and named it Line 6.

The idea behind Line 6 was simple: use technology (digital sound processing) to “model” the aspects of classic guitar amplifiers. The runaway best selling product — POD — bat the ball out of the park. The maroon colored, kidney bean shaped metal box did a remarkable job of simulating sounds that would cost tens of thousands of dollars to create with the amplifier setups POD modeled.

But don’t mention POD in mixed company. And, really, in one way I can’t blame the purists in their disdain. Many POD users simply plug in a guitar, dial up a preset, and play away. It’s much like doing a trick exactly as it is written up. It’s just not…inspiring.

On the other hand, there are artists who use POD regularly who get fantastic results after spending the time to learn every aspect of the thing, and making changes and tweaks that fit their vision. Same happens when a magic performer learns every aspect of a trick and tweaks until the end result is unique and, well, magical.

Line 6 didn’t stop at modeling guitar amplifiers. A couple of years ago they released the Variax 500 — a modeled electric guitar. Using DSP technology, Line 6 engineers modeled a number of electric, acoustic and specialty guitars, stuffed the results into integrated circuits which were stuffed into an admittedly less-than-stellar guitar body and handed to guitar players emulations of nearly every guitar most of them could never hope to own.

The purists had a fit, pronounced the Variax a failure, and went back to their old standbys. Meanwhile, Line 6 had another smash hit on their hands. Go figure.

All of this was brought back front and center to me yesterday as I received my Line 6 PODxt Live. I was an early adopter of both POD, PODxt (the successor to POD), and the Variax 500, so the PODxt Live was not so much a choice as a natural progression in a disease many of you know well. (It’s okay, no need to stand up and be counted. Just know there are lots of us.)

PODxt Live takes the digital interface cable from the Variax and, essentially, controls it from the footboard. Between the two, a guitar player has at his hands (and feet) just about every desirable guitar amplifier, guitar special effects pedal, and electric and acoustic guitars in any combination he can imagine.

So this is what crack is like.

In a way, this combination is much like certain sets of books in my magic and mentalism library. If I pulled from the shelf the Tarbells, Stewart James books, the Jinx reprints, Mind, Myth & Magic, Complete Magick, and Compleat Invocation, it could be said that I’d have the magic and mentalism equivalent of the PODxt Live/Variax — that is, the raw material to create my own riffs.

Now, I could simply pull any trick from any book and do it precisely as written and I’d have essentially a trick someone else created done as they created it. It is original inasmuch as it was original with them. I’d simply be immitating a riff someone else created.

Not that there’s anything wrong with playing someone else’s riff, if it makes you feel good and you find it good practice. But it’s not creative, and I certainly think it’s dangerous to confuse practice with creativity.

Back to Line 6. There are the guitarist mystics who are not as enamoured with the PODxt/Variax combination, but — in my opinion — for the wrong reasons. Now, I’ve been a collector of BC Rich guitars since the early 80s. I am particularly fond of the Mockingbird and Bich models handcrafted by the late Bernie Rico. I happen to love the sound of one played through my tube amplifier at obnoxiously loud levels. But having spent considerable time tweaking my PODxt, I find I can get the same recorded result from it as I do putting a microphone in front of my Marshall amplifier and speakers.

Magic and mentalism have their own brand of mysticism regarding certain tricks. If I ask you to close you eyes and think of most of the kid shows you’ve seen — maybe even performed — certain tricks come immediately to mind as the canon of kid show performance. Surely the list will include the Magic Coloring Book, Hippity Hop Rabbits, Die Box. (As to Hippity Hop Rabbits, I’d like to mention that Stewart James — and I know you know who is Stewart James and, if not, I don’t want to know — considered HHR one of the greatest magic tricks.)

Why did these tricks end up comprising the Canon of Kid Show Magic?

If you’ve witnessed enough mentalism performances, you have undoubtedly encountered frightenly similar versions (which is a nice way of saying exact copies) of Q&A, Bank Night, Seven Keys to Bald Pate and Chronologue.

Why did these tricks find their way into the Canon of Mentalism Performances?

It’s not that I have anything in particular against the tricks I mentioned above. In fact, I consider them classics. And classics are classics for a reason. But to do the same version as the next guy just isn’t magical.

But that’s secondary to the main point.

Suggest to a performer that maybe they’d do better to replace one of his “standards” with a newer version and you may as well suggest his mother is in the service business (if you know what I mean, and I think you do.)

Why? Not everyone is willing to put in the time and effort naturally required to get satisfying results. Many people are personally perfectly happy with barely adequate. (Audience members are not numbered in that, despite what anyone may tell you.)

Do you put in the time required to be better than adequate? Do you spend the time required to be fully acquainted with the tools of your trade? Do you consider new methods for old tricks? Do you use the tools of our trade when they serve their purpose perfectly? (Ultra Mental comes immediately to mind for some reason.)

Bob Ezrin is a legend in the world of music and making records. He’s the guy behind the sound of Alice Cooper, Kiss, and Pink Floyd’s “The Wall” among numerous releases.

Bob Ezrin uses the Line 6 PODxt and a Variax. Go figure.

In 1977 — long before some of you were even born, I’m sad and/or frightened to say — NASA launched from a pad at Kennedy Space Center Voyager 1 and Voyager 2. The initial primary mission of the Voyager program was the exploration of Jupiter and Saturn. (I’m sure no one at mission control ever uttered the words, “We’re going to probe Uranus next.”) When the longer term capabilities of the spacecraft were examined, the program morphed into a interstellar journey just this side of Captain Kirkville.

Being a geek-in-training at the time, I was absolutely, completely fascinated by these projects. (There may even be some NASA employees who recall the regular letters I sent, which, remarkably, were each answered kindly.)

In what some deemed technological hubris and typical human egocentricity, to each spacecraft was attached a gold-coated copper phonograph record meant to convey a series of messages to any alien race that receives it. This was assuming, of course, they were advanced enough to break down the second most common element in the universe: hydrogen. (The most common element in the universe, apparently, being stupidity.)

NASA also, wisely, attached a cartridge, stylus, and a how-to diagram instructing how to play the album. Thus demonstrating, again, high hopes that the recipients would have already cleared the required level of scientific intelligence commonly known as the “How To Program a VCR” hurdle which so clearly delineates intelligent life from lower, insignificant lifeforms known as “normal people.”

As an aside, for those of us who have read L. Ron Hubbard’s book, “Battlefield Earth” or the story from the first Star Trek motion picture, you have to accept the possibility that this might not turn out all that well for the future generations who may be visited by beings less affable, if more attactive than Spielberg’s E.T. But, since Carl Sagan suggests it may be ten billion years before either Voyager spacecraft even enters a planetary system — and assuming the gold album isn’t first melted to create a grill for some gangsta alien — I’ll go out on a limb and state for the record:

Any unfriendly aliens determined to make earthlings their slaves will first have to fight mankind’s other three masters — roaches, McDonald’s Big Macs, and Microsoft.

On the record is found 118 images of earth and its civilizations and almost an hour and a half of music (for some bizarre reason no Led Zeppelin was included), and greetings in nearly sixty human languages and one whale language.

But how do a room full of adult human beings select ninety minutes of music meant to represent humanity when one has to sift through hundreds of years and a multitude of cultures from which to choose? Why, via fisticuffs of course. (Kidding.) Carl Sagan had the final red pen, but he surrounded himself with people more than capable of making valuable suggestions. And the end result is a lovely representation of planet earth’s music as of 1977.

But none of the discussions over which piece of music or image to use could eclipse the “discussions” ensuing over the plaques attached to Voyager’s previous stellar brethren, Pioneer 10 and Pioneer 11. To the antenna structure of each of those probes, fired in the general direction of the outer space of 1972 and 1973, was affixed a gold-covered plaque — an interstallar greeting card of sorts — meant to convey our humanness and location in the universe. More hubris in action.

But, as Sagan wrote of the plaque, the reaction to the contents were “both amusing and amazing” — surely one of my favorite phrases.

Among the things depicted on our gold greeting card were drawings of a man and a woman — nekkid as jaybirds. This presented a national crisis in the making since newspapers had to decide how to depict such nudity in print. And then there were the angry letters and phone calls asking why taxpayer money was being spent to send “smut” into space.

There were letters of protest from feminists who were outraged that the woman seemed to be depicted as subservient to the man — as if there was anything wrong with that. Sure she was barefoot, but she wasn’t placed in the kitchen, so I’m not sure I can see what the problem was.

There were the men who couldn’t be terribly happy with the way he was depicted. I’ll leave it at that.

There were those who complained that the depictions of the man and woman were created by only three people, rather than a planetary council which included all races and, therefore, did not actually represent all of mankind. Some even demanded that any future depiction sent into space be by such council so as to not leave anyone feeling left out.

So. Given the relative level of importance of this project, which can legitimately be measured by cosmic proportions, and the fact that so many uninvolved people can nitpick the details, can it come as any suprise that the details that make up any individual performance of magic or mentalism — surely a smaller world than that of the space program — might succumb to the same human tendencies?

While observing our own navel, and those of others, may be a fascinating past time — and even necessary from time to time — what it is we are looking for or hoping to accomplish is something of importance. When we pick apart our performance, or that of another, the intent makes a difference.

Is there much point in complaining that David Blaine used tricks found in a beginner’s magic set? Or that David Copperfield is performing the same illusions from years and years ago? (I could make a compelling argument for for asking why is he no longer featuring Joanie Spina, but I’ll have to save that for a later date.) I’d say, no there isn’t. But studying the effect of either performer on the audience is, I think, time well spent.

But let’s keep our perspective in check. Let’s remember where on the vast piece of cosmic fabric we sit. It might be time better spent to first nitpick our own routines and performances and compare them to the results we hope to obtain when we perform for others. Surely a good starting point may be to observe our relative importance in the world of magic and mentalism before trudging off in some direction of critiquing the performance of another.

One of my areas of deep interest (both personal and fiduciary) is music production. One of our Grand Zen Masters is George Massenburg who, in putting into perspective the relative importance of our work in the grand scheme of things, stated:

“Finally, get some perspective. Pro Audio is but one tiny cell of a fungus on a short hair of a flea on the pink part of a rather large elephant’s ass meandering aimlessly through a huge foetid marsh somewhere on the surface of a tiny, insignificant planet lost in an infinite universe. Don’t take yourself too seriously.”

Indeed.

Since it is December 23rd, it is incumbent upon me to wish each and every one of you a joyous Festivus holiday.